“Ransomware attacks are not new. In fact, ISACA has been sounding the alarm on the increasing spate of ransomware for a while now. Unfortunately, it takes a massive scale cyber-attack like the one we are seeing against the U.K.’s NHS and other entities around the world, for such cyber crimes to gain national and international notoriety. In fact, another recent ransomware attack that caught the public’s attention in the U.S., was when San Francisco’s transportation department was hit last November, impacting the city’s light rail transit system,” says Rob Clyde, who is a Board Director for ISACA and an Executive Chair of the Board of Directors at White Cloud Security.

Clyde insists that the reasons for the increase and popularity of ransomware attacks are no mystery. He says that for the bad guys it simplifies the crime and process of monetization.

“Think about it. Earlier, even a simple computer crime involved two steps to get to monetization. First, the criminals have to break-in and steal personal information like credit card details and then secondly, sell it on the dark web, often to organized crime groups, in order to get paid. The buyers, in turn, use the credit card or other information to commit fraudulent transactions,” Clyde explains. “With ransomware, crime has become an easy one-step monetization process. They break into a computer system, install ransomware and get the payment directly from the person or organization impacted. It’s a one-to-one interaction and payment is easily received. So from a cyber criminal’s perspective, ransomware has become a superior way of monetization.

Rob’s comments are important because there are new cybersecurity solutions that stop this threat by default. White Cloud Security provides a next generation whitelist solution that does NOT need patching, signature updates, threat assessments, or behavior analysis to stop this threat. To learn more, talk to our Sales Team.